Copyright photograph by Derek Bayes
Most of this progress is due to a remarkable series of women, some of whom preceded Cicely, and others who joined in the work with her later on. They range from Dean Florence Wald of the Yale University Nursing School in Newhaven, Connecticut, USA, to Louie, one of Cicely’s favourite, very disabled and surprisingly long-lived patients at St Joseph’s , to Sister Zita Marie from Kansas City USA.
Now, fortunately for us, legions of such great people are working around the world. Not surprisingly perhaps, Cicely was affectionately called ‘Hurricane Cicely’ by the splendid Canadian doctor, Balfour Mount, who came to St Christopher’s Hospice to learn what Cicely was doing and how her hospice was doing it. He became one of the early pioneers inspired by Cicely. As Dr Balfour Mount recently said “The Hospice Movement has done something dramatic to medicine, in that it is putting the patients back at the centre of care, and regarding them as whole people.”